the seventh wheel
by ExtraordinaryElliot
Summary: There is a time in every life that someone begins thinking they are not enough. During these time, someone may find themselves surrounded by people who care very much about their well-being, or they may find themselves talking to people who don't care, who would rather focus on things besides their friend's health.


There is a time in every life that someone begins thinking they are not enough. During these time, someone may find themselves surrounded by people who care very much about their well-being, or they may find themselves talking to people who don't care, who would rather focus on things besides their friend's health.

For Lance McClain, he was that someone. For Lance McClain, his friends were those people.

He knew they meant well - it was just stressful, trying to defeat some evil alien who couldn't tell his head from his ass and so forth, along with rescuing planets and having no idea whether they would live or die. Lance understood, he really did. But sometimes their comments got to him, and he'd have to remind himself that it wasn't their fault, it wasn't anyone's fault. _It's not my fault, either,_ he would think.

And it was true. Whenever Keith made a comment about Lance's intelligence, he would brush it off. _He's part Galra, Lance. Give the guy a break, he's going through a lot._ Whenever Allura made a comment about his flirting, Lance would shrug. _Oh well, she's one of the last of her kind, Lance. She's stressed._ Whenever he was denied his request to help on a mission, he would smile. _Hey, Shiro's right. You need practice._

He supposed Hunk and Pidge's comments were the worse. Pidge, with her genius mind, always asking him to back off. She used to be nice about it, but now, with the intent on finding her family, she can't. She sometimes snaps at him, asks him to shut up. Lance does as asked, because this girl is like his little sister, and he wouldn't ever want to hurt his little sister.

But Hunk didn't really make comments, did he? No, he was just busy. Lance didn't blame him because he was busy, too. They were all busy, but didn't Lance make time for everyone else whenever they were down? He knew he couldn't blame them because he had the least to do on the team. Everyone else had a thing.

 _Do I have a thing?_

Slowly, his smile got harder to show, his eyes got darker, his humor disappearing. It wasn't their fault. It was this stupid war they were fighting, it was the thought of his family having to go on without him, it was the thought of never seeing the ocean again. But he pushed through, forcing a smile, a laugh, a will to keep living.

Lance wouldn't say he was suicidal, not at all. He hadn't been for three years, hadn't taken a blade to his skin in four. But he'd grown tired - of living, of breathing, of everything. Everything felt forced and strange like it was unnatural to be doing anything. He just wanted to stay in his room.

Breathing became the thing that was most difficult to do. It would be easier to just stop, to let himself just _stop_. It took Lance a while to realize that he was just having a panic attack. _Was it always a panic attack?_

"Are you alright?" _Hunk?_

"You okay?" _Shiro?_

"Hey, you look a little down? Do you need to talk?" _I don't know who you are._

 _Go away, go away, go away!_

The same question, always that question. _No, I'm not. I want to be taken seriously as a team member, I want my family back, I just want everyone here to treat me like a human being that has feelings because, newsflash asshole, I do! I have my moments, but I'm always pushed away by you and everyone else! I just, for once, want to be appreciated! But besides that?_

"Yeah, I'm fine."

* * *

He's tired of everything - the worthless feelings, the sarcastic comments, the way everyone but him seems to have someone to go to. _But what about Hunk? You could always go to him, right?_ Lance seemed to stop thinking so after Hunk had seemed too busy to talk. He didn't want to be a bother, never again. Not when there was still so much to do.

Sure, they'd defeated Zarkon. Time to go home, right? To his mom, his dad, his little brothers, and sisters, along with his older siblings, who would surely be happy that he wasn't dead, right? Time to return to the beach, to play fights with his younger siblings, to surfing with his dad, to swimming with his little sisters, to teaching his nieces and nephews how to swim. Time to go home…

Except now they had to deal with Prince Lotor and all his bullshit. And the fact that Shiro was missing. They wouldn't return home. Lance wouldn't see his family for who knows how long, and he had finally given up hope on the time every coming. _You're lightyears away from them, anyways, Lance. They're all dead. They're dead and you probably caused it._

The smile that had become forced had slipped away entirely. The laugh that Lance had worked so hard to keep was gone. The kind words he always had to say to someone had turned nasty, to things he hated about them. So he kept his mouth shut, trying no to feel upset when it took them too long to notice.

He trained harder, harder than ever before. There was nothing else to do - no leads, no attacks, no going home. So he stayed awake late into the night and didn't go to sleep in the morning. At best, he slept for an hour every day, slowly destroying himself. _You deserve it._

 _You deserve this, McClain._

 _You are nothing._

Then they found Shiro and, surprise surprise, he played favorite again. _It's always Keith. It's always Pidge. Will you ever get appreciated, Lance?_

 _No. You'll always be invisible._

So no one noticed when Lance 'went to bed' early. No one noticed that one of the knives was missing from the training room. No one noticed when Lance didn't come to breakfast the next morning. No one noticed until Keith went searching for Lance, ready to call him out for missing training.

Then they noticed - the blood that stained his sheets. The pale skin, cold and lifeless against the boy who used to have so much life. The cuts in his wrists, deeper than anything the healing pods could have helped.

Everyone noticed.

 _The seventh wheel was gone._

 _There were only six wheels now._

 _Was six enough?_

 _Yeah,_ Lance had thought, his breathing becoming shallower as he laid in his bed, eyes screwed up tightly from the pain. _Six is plenty._

 _Six is enough._

 _Unlike you._

* * *

 **HUNK:**  
It was safe to say that out of everyone in the Castle, Hunk was the person most affected by Lance's suicide. He stopped eating. He stopped cooking. He just … shut down. Shiro ordered people to keep an eye on him, but Hunk would never - _never_ \- go out like Lance. Not only did he not want to hurt his friends and family, but he felt that he would be disrespecting Lance's memory. Somehow.

Lance. His best friend.

 _Lance is dead_.

The thought just kept coming back. He tried pushing it away, tried thinking of something else, _anything_ else that would distract him from the nightmare that was losing Lance. If only he had been there. If only he had been there for Lance. Just _been there_ , maybe Lance would still be here.

Laughing.

Smiling.

 _Happy?_

No, Lance wouldn't be happy. This wasn't Hunk's fault, he knew. He might have been busy, but Lance wouldn't kill himself over that. He was too … practical.

Still.

 _I'm so sorry, Lance._

 **CORAN:**  
Coran was the second most depressed person in the Castle to date.

Lance was like a son to him, one that couldn't be replaced. One that meant the world to him, who he had promised to protect from it all. And he had failed, failed miserably. Lance was dead. His boy was gone because of Coran's ignorance.

He hadn't understood at first. He hadn't wanted to understand.

What pain had Lance been going through? Before and during his death? He'd cut deep. He'd bled to death. Not by an enemy's hand, but his own. Coran would wonder for the next hundred years what Lance had been going through. If he could have been stopped. If he could … if Coran could have stopped him.

Could he have stopped him?

Or would Lance still be gone?

He didn't know.

He felt numb.

 **ALLURA:**  
She'd failed as a leader, she knew.

All the times she had yelled at Lance, every insult and scoff and eye roll - she wished she could take it back, take it all back and have Lance, _her Lance_ , standing in front of her. Smiling. Happy. Himself.

Allura had failed.

Failed miserably.

She regretted it.

But she pushed on. Because the universe needed to be saved from Lotor, and Allura had no time to grieve. She would later, when she was along. When everyone was saved, when it was quiet.

For now, she would push on. She would be numb.

 **SHIRO:**  
All Shiro could think about what how he had failed. Failed so badly, because he had been shutting Lance down, he hadn't been listening, he hadn't thought that his actions would have consequences. He had been the worst leader. The worst friend.

If he even was a friend.

He had walked away. The minute Hunk broke down sobbing, Shiro was gone, tears in his eyes. He had heard Keith yell his name, yelling for him to come back, but all Shiro wanted to do was curl up in his bed and cry.

He wasn't a crier.

But he hadn't been a good leader.

His dreams were full of images of blood and blades, cuts and laughter. He saw Lance's body being dragged away while he - Shiro - laughed in the distance. He woke up in cold sweats, crying. But he wouldn't say so.

He would ever say so.

 **PIDGE:**  
The guilt was gnawing at her.

If Pidge didn't stay up late before, she was never getting to sleep again. Not after seeing Lance like that, so pale and weak. So … lifeless. She would never get more than an hour of sleep before she was waking up again, the image of Lance's blood and body burned into her mind.

What had she done?

Now, Pidge was logical. She knew that it wasn't _her_ who had made Lance so depressed, at least no directly. She'd known, from the moment that she'd seen him, that Lance had a history with depression. But she'd thought … she'd assumed that he had been fine in space.

Now that she thought back, Pidge figured that she should have kept a better eye on him. A better … she should have been better. Listened. Watched. Or should have told someone, at least. Shiro. Allura. Hell, even Keith. Someone who would make sure Lance was _okay._

Pidge didn't know how to process anything anymore.

 **KEITH:**  
While everyone wallowed in their own self-pity, Keith trained.

He never slept, never slowed down, never stopped. No one asked how he felt - why would they? He was Keith, who never felt anything but anger.

But he did feel.

He felt the horror at finding Lance curled in a ball, his blood soaking the sheets below.

He felt the anger that Lance would go out like _this_.

And he felt the blades cut into his own skin that night.

He didn't want to believe that Lance was something that Keith once was. It had only lasted a few months, sure, but Keith had almost _died_. He had almost been where Lance was now. Except he was alive.

So why wasn't Lance?

 _Why didn't Lance say anything?_

But Keith knew. After all, he hadn't said anything, either. But he'd tried. Why hadn't Lance tried?

 _He had._

 _You just didn't see it._

 **BLUE:**  
Everyone in the Castle thought they were taking Lance's death the hardest, but no one thought to check on Blue.

Lance was her pilot. Her _friend_. He treated her like a friend, like family. And now he was gone.

She had felt his pain as he had died. The blood flowing from his wrists, the cuts- _oh_ , the cuts. They had stung her much worse than him, because she _knew_ that she couldn't save him, couldn't even reach him.

He had shut her out.

She had wailed.

The other lions had been annoyed until they'd learned what had happened.

She didn't need their _sympathy_.

She needed her best friend.

She needed _Lance_.


End file.
